Friday with Means - February 13th, 2009

[Amosco]

I'm shocked to find out that Means is an American (or maybe Canadian... They are ALWAYS hiding among us and talking with our dialect!). All this time, I thought he was Norwegian along with all the other Devs.

[Malaxia]

What about the progress on the new engine ? I want videos !

[shadowgod]

I'm shocked to find out that Means is an American (or maybe Canadian... They are ALWAYS hiding among us and talking with our dialect!). All this time, I thought he was Norwegian along with all the other Devs.

hes canadian.

in the dev team, theres also a danish, and also has been a backwoods redneck from mississippi even! (i keeed!)

not sure about the rest. but they got a rather diverse group there.

[Joeynumbahz]

Ahahahaha Canadian's for the win!

[Towerblock]

Error message, cant play it.

Anyone else get it? Youtube doesn't have a copy of it either. :/

[Gunfytr]

hes canadian.

Kinda blows the whole "I blame Canada" thing right outta the water, huh?

[Boltgun]

Ok Means,

I'm trying to join the Nelwand City Council again and I need that chair to look superior. I bought the booster because of my crazy rp needs. I mean, I stuffed almost 10m worth of furniture on my apartment and 5 more millions in my luxury jobe appartment (gotten from sl preorder) while making leet duels in my personnel mech, that's how hardcore it can be. You get my wallet this time Means.

This is not over ! >:U

PS : Also it's because these instance looks fun as hell and you should continue doing such stuff but next time you give neut neck items such a crap treatments I'll learn new insults to better flame everyone.

[ArienSky]

Or, implement the Omni-1 Red Light District with the booster

.. have you never been to the N/W corner of Omni-Ent?
Silk, extacy etc.. pay that place a visit.

[shadowgod]

Kinda blows the whole "I blame Canada" thing right outta the water, huh?

nah, infact, it gives it proper credit. we can actually blame canada about any problems in AO, and it would actually have legitimacy!

[wormx]

Seems that the engine is the next big thing. Means got questions on it and the feed back on that site says it all. Old graphics have to go. So since you knocked the worm bucket over Means can you tells us if it is being moved to the top of the must get done list?

Otherwise short and sweet works.

Mah bucket!

[Stick]

i don't know if it was on purpose or not, but putting (tm) on the end credits of the trailer after "Coming soon" is pure gold. it pretty much fits FC.

[CriticalDmg]

Error message, cant play it.

Anyone else get it? Youtube doesn't have a copy of it either. :/

Try this direct link to the video : mms://72.232.165.148/MMORPG/videos/1359/3b4c3335-75b0-416f-b9a0-e176a5f4cd9d.wmv

(it'll probably get broken at some point, but it'll work for now)



p.s. I still prefer 3D Realms's "When It's Done"
wtb Duke Nukem 4 Ever pst

[Steiden]

I'm shocked to find out that Means is an American (or maybe Canadian... They are ALWAYS hiding among us and talking with our dialect!). All this time, I thought he was Norwegian along with all the other Devs.

Well, "Colin Cragg" doesnt sounds like a Norwegian name at all.

Just like "Ola Glomstulen" doesnt sounds like a Canadian one :-)


Steiden

[Darkirbiskaa]

Nice commercial and when I saw cool h. chair I pre-ordered too,so Coming soon>_<

[Armus]

Question: Is Funcom aware of the massive difference in numbers between factions on rk1? And if so are there any plans to actively remedy this situation?

During what used to be clan prime time, as in round 8 pm gmt, omni usualy outnumbers clan by a small ammount. And during us evening and late evening the difference can be as large as 3:1. It's usually not quite that big but still usually a major difference.

Given that clanners were to be numerous while omnis got superior tools as compensation for this (it's the rp explenation) I think something needs to be done now.
Finally changing OS is a step in the right direction for sure. Too bad 95% of clan NW "leaders" and such quit before you reacted. So... anything going to be done to compensate this and maybe give a lil incentive for ppl to go clan?

[Darkirbiskaa]

-snip-

New stam/str sleeves for claners and clan gun ship.

[Kaitoujeanne]

Nice Video! Will we get any chance at that DB Armor I saw on the Video? :P

*Bump* for adding AXP Global Research to complete the 3 AI Techs or something else for AI30 Toons!

[Gothy]

Hey Means!

I'm just letting you know I'm getting out the voodoo doll.

Why? 'Cause Xan of Lust is a joke. The least you could do is make it slightly better than the Ofab Peregrine, but noooo. After the last excuse of a pistol was released (hihi Twitch) as a "pvm option" (I still don't buy it) the least you could do with this "pvm option" is make it a real option instead of crap.

Change plx, or the doll gets it!

[Towerblock]

Try this direct link to the video : mms://72.232.165.148/MMORPG/videos/1359/3b4c3335-75b0-416f-b9a0-e176a5f4cd9d.wmv

WMP still refuses to play it. :/ guh.

[egadsrk2]

Got a question for the big man. Shades. And its a long one. Including information that hopefully isnt needed.

Someone who plays a Shade as their main character wont have any possible way of posing this question without being emotionally charged up and getting all crazy about other things they want, so I'm doing it. Theres talk that the QL300 spirits for 18.0 are sourced from the current in game maximum spirits, that are QL270. This post is not about what shades have, dont have, should have, or any of that guff. It focuses solely on the method of acquiring both the top old spirits, and top new spirits.

Wether or not this is a fact, shrug. If it is a fact, then that is bloody awful, restricting this entire content to an extreme minority of the shade population, as opposed to QL300 symbiants which have become a fairly realistic goal for any 220 with the drive to put them on.

Is the big man aware just how much of an immense pain in the arse it is to acquire QL270 Spirits? Theres only one method, its chancy at best, and takes a long time to set up. If you really put the time in, you can expect to bump into a single QL270 spirit by pure chance after a week or so of mind crippling boredom. Assuming you don't throw in the towel at how ridiculous it is.

Step 1. Farm a crazy amount of pocket bosses, from Inferno, and novictum to match. Theres three varieties that work, and they are all QL220, the lowest of Inferno, though as I recall Inf only comes in two flavours, 220 or 255. This is done solo.

Step 2. Slaughter them, generally in very large batches. The mob does not have anywhere close to a 100% drop chance, and has a dropping range of over 100 quality levels, of which just 6 of them are in a useful range. This is done solo. The goal is not to loot spirits, oh no, it couldnt possibly be that simple. The goal is to loot spirit siphons. From QL range 269 to 275, with a possible dropping range of like 170-275. Its crazy. Even if the boss drops a siphon, its damn near garaunteed it wont drop what you're after.

Step 3. Head into one of two places with level 220-230 mobs on demand without a large amount of people around to ruin your day. This is done solo.

Do this in high enough volume and its remotely possible you'll get a 270 spirit, this has been the method for many years and they're still quite rare items. You can spend a billion credits on some of them, putting them at a higher pricing point than any symbiant has ever been. If you give up and go on a spending spree, that is.

All in all, the 270 spirit grind is the true mark of patience in this game. Whoever originally designed the siphons, hopefully intended them to be much more common and acquirable at the maximum QL - if not the spirits themselves.

Lets compare against the QL300 Intel -> Alpha unit switches. Sure, some of them are expensive. But they've been dropping, sold about ,traded, swapped, and collected every six hours for the last five+ years. Theres a few symbiants out there that have extreme value due to once someone buys one, they never onsell it, but in a realistic time frame any person hunting for any particular item, can get it. Without spending a week focused on a single task - they can just pick up that task for 1 out of every 6 hours, and walk away with what they're looking for eventually. If they choose not to pay out.

So. If you FC folk is completely unaware that this is the only method of getting QL270 spirits, now you are. But I can't see how its possible since shades have been whining like mad since the dawn of time.

Somethings got to give.

Either siphons need modified so that lower QL ones can be used on higher mobs with higher gains, or simply made a lot more common, or revised so its not possible for low ones to drop any more - have them all fixed at QL275 or range from 250-300 or something, because noone even uses the low ones.

Or of course the 300's can just drop as is. Shades deserve that. Everyone else has enjoyed their 300's dropping as is for the last two years that they've been realistically equippable (the entire 17.x patch cycle).

Another stop gap solution would be adding Spirit Siphons to the loot tables of any kind of spirit mob found within an inf mission. The ones that spawn within these instances dont appear to. If they did, this is a source of QL250ish spirits, and thus higher (and potentially) QL300 siphons.

Even the top siphons have a maximum level usage of just 230 (the mob you can target with them). All of these factors make it highly inconvenient, and a much much bigger drama than TNH has ever been.

Theres a few other solutions and this one is more appropriate for game suggestions, but oh well. 18.0 and FWM has become game suggestions. :P

It appears that Source crystals for MP's have changed - hopefully allowing the charging up of QL300 source crystals, its the only thing that could have changed about it after all. Making the 255 Inferno PB's that noone has farmed big time (just a handful of kills to show that it can be done, most likely, with exceptions being the inferno key 255's), and have them drop 270 spirits directly. You could essentially reuse these mobs to create new content. From what data we have on them, even if they were conveniently spawnable, few would bother. Opening the door for shades to care without anyone having hard feelings about it. They're used to working hard for their 270's, and even this change would be an enormous improvement.